Another takeaway, another curry

[haldi]

I got into the kitchens of another takeaway last night
Very friendly staff
The curries are good BIR
I saw the unblended curry gravy pot
You could mainly see what was in it, although I did ask
Most ingredients were only roughly chopped if at all
You could see onions,green pepper,canned tomatoes,oil and water.
It also had ginger garlic, spice mix and salt
The curry gravy was in a pot about 12 inches tall by about ten inch diameter
Very little spice had been added to it
He said 1 chef spoon (about four desertspoons) for the whole pot
The spice goes in last to prevent burning
Conversation was extremely difficult because of language problems
I knew the takeaway he worked at before and his base is very similar to there.
They browned the garlic ginger in oil, then added the vegetables, salt, and water
Boiled for an hour or two, then added the spice and boiled half an hour more
Then they blended
I think this is almost the same recipe
Chef showed me a vindaloo
I will post this later, when I have more time

[curryqueen]

Hi Haldi,  I'm looking forward to that, vindaloo is one of my favourites along with dupiaza.  CQ

[haldi]

Continuing the above demo post
I saw the new curry gravy blended
They don't bother seperating out the oil
It ends up looking very creamy and thick
The oil for cooking curries is from a deep pan fryer
The bhajees samosas and chips are done in that too
So the oil definitely has a bit of flavour!!

There were the usual small cartons of spices, coconut powder,almond powder, dried fenugreek, garlic ginger and fresh coriander
All these were positioned to the left of a very old gas cooker
I have never seen one quite like this before
It gets the big flames but the shape where the gas came out was like a perforated dome
Like a little volcano
Anyhow it worked well enough

The chef proceeded to make a chicken vindaloo
He heated about two desertspoons of chip pan oil for about a minute
Then he added half a desertspoon of garlic ginger puree,1 desertspoon thick tomato puree,1 chefs spoon of thick curry gravy (about 4 desertspoons) and 1 desertspoon spice mix

At this point he asked me if I wanted the vindaloo hot
I said yes and he quickly added 1 teaspoon of crushed dried red chillies to the pan.
I've never seen those used before
Chef stirred the pan for about two minutes and a very strong smell came from the pan, although nothing was burning
I guess this would be the "toffee" aroma Gary Woodpecker describes
Chef took the pan off the cooker and added about a cup of water
He stirred this in and returned the pan to the heat
He added a couple more big spoons of curry gravy and the precooked chicken
He cooked on for about five minutes more with a lid on the pan
He turned the meal out and into a foil container
He added a little chopped coriander and put the lid on
Very nice people and an enjoyable meal

[Curry King]

Another great post Haldi, howcome you seem to be able to blag your way into more kitchens than anyone else 

[fumble]

You could see onions,green pepper,canned tomatoes,oil and water.

Hi Haldi, I'm interested to know why they add green pepper. It has very little taste, and its colour must be swamped by the spices and tomato. I don't see why they would do this as peppers are more expensive than onions, so why bother?

[haldi]

how come you seem to be able to blag your way into more kitchens than anyone else 

Well, there are loads of little takeaways dotted around here, so there are lots of places to try.
Nobody has ever offered to show me, I always have had to ask
I get turned down too]
Also the staff move around from place to place
This time, I knew the driver and the side chef from somewhere two years ago
I hope I am some sort of a friend

I don't see why they would do this as peppers are more expensive than onions, so why bother?

Yes, I see your point, but green peppers are in it
I believe lots of places use them, but I know several that definetly don't

The one style of BIR I really want to make, I still can't do
It's got the extra taste that I can't get close too
They DON'T use pepperes
In fact when they cook a curry they put in very little, except curry gravy

[Graeme]

Hi all,

Haldi
very good info Haldi.
I tryed a vindaloo a few weeks back
because the smell was great inside the bir.

The vindaloo texture was
course and thick, not red soup slop.

The poperdoms tasted like very very old oil,
the sort you may want to run you car on one day :-)

Funny but the curry was very good, the quality
took me back a few years.

I have wanted to go back ever since for a second try,
currys so addictive when done right !
But the BIR is over 15 miles away.

[adriandavidb]

Hi Haldi.

Your chef did things in a similar way to the chef I watched in what used to be the Gatwick Tanoori. i.e. the addition of oil, spices (& sugar, in my case), to A SMALL initial quantity of base; then after the flavour of the spice has been extracted by the hot all, he added the remaining base and other ingredients.

I believe this technique is critical to getting the BIR taste!  I've tried adding all the base first, the flavour does not develope correctly and texture ends up more gritty.

I believe that what happens is that the hot oil is in relative excess initially, which allows the oil to properly extract the (lipid soluble) flavours from the spice mix.  The small amount of base prevents the spice burning, because as long as water remains boiling away in the base, the pan will not get hotter than 100 C!  So in effect the initail addition of base just prevents the spice burning.  I have read elsewhere on Cr0 that one contributer has seen oil AND water heated TOGETHER before the addition of spice (he even admitted that it seemed odd to to this!) - same reason!!

Whenever I use a 'curry-powder' such as the Bruce Edward's one, I ALWAYS adopt this method.  The only time I do not do this is when adding cummin or garam masalla, which goes in near the end of the cooking time.

I must say, I think this site is great, I never realized that there were so many like-minded people out there!